BOULEVARD
Starz
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: B
Director: Dito Montiel
Screenwriter: Douglas Soesbe
Cast: Robin Williams, Kathy Baker, Roberto Aguire, Giles Matthey, Eleonore Hendricks, Bob Odenkirk, Henry Haggard
Screened at: Review 1, NYC,6/1/15
Opens: July 17, 2015
An increasing number of marriages are breaking up when the couple are in their sixties, even beyond. While boredom can be cited as one obvious reason, Dito Montiel’s movie “Boulevard” points out another. According to Douglas Soesbe’s script, Nolan Mack (Robin Williams) and his wife Joy (Kathy Baker) might be considered by many observers to have too long a marriage to see it fall apart when they are in their early sixties (never mind that they sleep in separate bedrooms), but trouble brews when the husband realizes that he’s gay, that he’s always been gay, and that while the clock is ticking, he’d do well to come out of the closet and live the life he was born to lead.
Yes, folks, being gay is not a choice that one makes at the age of sixteen or eighteen or sixty but a product of birth, though even given our relative social freedoms nowadays, many prefer to remain closeted, most likely for professional reasons. In fact Robin Williams’ morose character Nolan Mack has been living a lie even back before he took on the job of a bank officer in Nashville twenty-five years back. He has remained married to Joy all along and enjoys an unusual friendship with the much younger Winston (Bob Odenkirk), a professor in a local college who is dating Patty (Eleanor Hendricks), a much younger woman. While Nolan is juggling his identity crisis, he is also taking care of his semi-comatose father who is in a nursing home. One day he drives his Mercedes down a Nashville street that serves as an open market for hustlers, barely avoids colliding with a 20-something hustler, Leo (Robert Aguire) who is not only a doper but in debt to his violent pimp Eddie(Giles Matthey), and offers the young man a ride. They stop at a motel (three hours minimum!) where Leo is surprised that his client wants only to talk and offers him more money that he has requested.
At this point the story becomes strange and not particularly credible. We can get that a guy might want only to talk and not to have sex even in the company of a hustler. We can figure that no person in the prime of life would be willing to spend time with an older man except for money, though in this case Leo seems to need a father figure. We can even understand that when embraced, young Leo pushes away, saying that he is in the sex business, not the affection racket. But what does all this behavior by Nolan have to do with being gay? Seems to me that he could spend time with a 20-year-old straight fellow just as well if all he wants to do is talk, particularly revealing the way his whole life has been a lie—as he did in a visit with his father to whom he confesses that even in 1965 when he joined his dad on vacation, he was at least vaguely aware of his sexual identity.
Robin Williams proves once again that he can perform well in serious roles as he did in “Good Will Hunting” and in the more criminal-themed “One Hour Photo.” He still has what looks like a permanent smirk on his face, and in this role he seems so withdrawn and repressed that we wonder how he is even able to maintain his job as a bank official. When is most difficult to accept is that he is willing to put his job on the line at the very time he stands to be promoted to bank manager, not because his father is dying but for a much lesser emergency.
In side roles, Henry Haggard scores as Beaumont, the small-town bank manager who offers his star employee the professional break Nolan should be waiting for, and Roberto Aguire is credible as the alienated youth who plies his street trade and is fearful of becoming an honest man by accepting a job offer in a restaurant.
Unrated. 88 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – B-
Acting – B
Technical – B
Overall – B
